This section contains preliminary descriptions for all of England’s 159 National Character Areas. These are based on a variety of sources (click here for summary of sources) and set out under the key headings of:
These headings are also used for the Regional Character Summaries and the Farmstead Guidance section of this website. Each area statement can also be enhanced with additional sections on:
| Click here to download a PDF of all 159 character areas (PDF: 1.4MB) |
Use the menus or interactive map to select text and a map for each National Character Area. Use the tick box to turn regions or area on or off.
You can download regional summaries by clicking here, using the interactive map below, or going directly to the regional summaries from the main menu above.
The introductions to each character area are taken from work undertaken for the Countryside Agency to inform Environmental Stewardship Targetting by Land Use Consultants, Julie Martin Associates, Countryscape and Kate Collins of Sheils Flynn (2004).
Each statement draws upon the historic profiles written for the Countryside Quality Counts project (1998-2003 analysis) by Jeremy Lake and Dave Went of Characterisation Team, English Heritage, and assisted by Bob Edwards of Forum Heritage Services for the South East region. See www.cqc.org.uk
They are also based upon a wide variety of sources and general observation. These sources are summarised in the Historic Farmsteads: Preliminary Regional Character Statements (2006) by English Heritage (principal authors Jeremy Lake, Bob Edwards and Susanna Wade Martins). See www.helm.org.uk/server/show/nav.00h013006001
The maps have been supplied by Natural England, and copyright details are supplied with each one.
The National Countryside Character Areas (formerly known as Joint Character Areas or JCAs) have been chosen as the framework for the Farmstead Character Area descriptions, because they are already used at a national level for the Environmental Stewardship Schemes http://www.countryside.gov.uk/LAR/Landscape/CC/jca.asp and the analysis of the rate and meaning of change in the countryside (http://countryside-quality-counts.org.uk/). They comprise 159 areas and were jointly developed in the mid-late 1990s by English Heritage, English Nature and the Countryside Commission in consultation with a wide range of stakeholders (www.naturalengland.org.uk/ourwork/landscape/englands/character/areas/default.aspx). Landscape Character Assessment (LCA) has since been developed at a finer grain for use by planners and communities at a local level (www.naturalengland.org.uk/ourwork/landscape/englands/character/assessment/default.aspx) or (www.landscapecharacter.org.uk).
These national areas provide a good starting point for rapidly describing character. English Heritage’s Characterisation Team and its county-based partners is leading on deepening an understanding the patterning of farmsteads in the landscape, and the rates of survival of different types of steading and building, in relationship to patterns of landscape and settlement character and type. This rapid mapping is helping to deepen an understanding of individual areas in their broader context, in combination with its Historic Landscape Characterisation Programme, and better understand how reuse can contribute to emerging forms of rural economy and society (www.englishheritage.org.uk/characterisation).
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